Monthly Archives: December 2007

If I were an organized craft blogger I would link to Flickr and Ravelry with photos and notes of all my finished projects. However, I still have the link to J. Crew up here and all my online tracking is still linked to my old job. So I’m not that organized.

I am proud of all my projects in 2007, disorganized as they may be. I’ve hinted around but never said it outright: I am deeply in debt and that is the reason I’ve made most of my clothes this year. So for me, 2007 was a year of being more than crafty; it was a year of learning how to not use credit cards. It’s been a struggle–I fell off the wagon a few times for shoes (but I can’t make shoes!) and just this week I saw my lovely sister-in-law’s new boots and was extremely jealous. But in all, I’ve made good progress, I am paying down my bills, and I’ve learned how to live on what I make. I still have my moments–“champagne tastes, beer budget”–but I can resist them now.

The other thing I’m proud of this year is learning how to live alone. (And paying “living alone” rent rates, which is linked to the financial progress, too.) Just last year in this week between Christmas and January I was house- and cat-sitting and announced, “I don’t want to live alone.” Three months later I had signed a lease on my place, and while it took some talking to the houseplants and the cuckoo clock, I did learn to be by myself, all the time. (Bonus: The prospect of being old and alone now holds a lot less terror.) (Yes, I think of these things. Sometimes quite often.)

So lots of personal growth and financial maturity and stuff in 2007. I feel a lot older than this time last year, although I think this is helping:Nothing like a high-end kitchen appliance from your honey to make you feel adult!

1. I’m feeling thwarted, craftily-speaking. When I wondered what I would knit next on Wednesday, I was serious: I have no knitting project in the works because I’m waiting to see if I get some BIRTHDAY YARN (cough!), my sewing machine at home isn’t sewing, and the honeycomb print smock I’m sewing on my mother’s sewing machine may very well look like a circus tent. A circus tent with wonky armhole facings, which was last night’s challenge.

2. So overall, not as much is happening on this break that I wanted to. But what is the cure for “all sadness and indecision”? Champagne!

I think the best part of Christmas as an adult–even better than getting things like irons, and Le Creuset skillets, and bird feeders–is deciding to celebrate with champagne. (Or sparkling wine, if we don’t want to offend the French.) There was a bottle for Christmas Eve and a bottle for Christmas dinner, and there will be bottles for New Year’s Eve and for my birthday (in one week!).

All the two main characters seem to do in Across the River and Into the Trees is drink champagne–or rather, Champagne, since they’re drinking Roederer Brut 1942. They even bring it on their gondola ride, and say this about it: “It is good for all the ills that all of us have, and for all sadness and indecision.”

The Wikipedia article on the Winter Solstice (which happens sometime tomorrow) has a good sectionabout “paralleled traditions” for celebrating the solstice in many cultures. I especially liked the part about solstice celebrations really being a therapeutic device to cope with winter:

“…Being indoors causes negative ion deficiency which decreases serotonin levels resulting in depression and tiredness. Also, getting insufficient light in the short winter days increases the secretion of melatonin in the body, off balancing the circadian rhythm with longer sleep. Exercise, light therapy, and increased negative ion exposure (which can be attained from plants and well ventilated flames burning wood or beeswax) can reinvigorate the body from its seasonal lull and relieve winter blues…Midwinter festivals and celebrations occurring on the longest night of the year, often calling for evergreens, bright illumination, large ongoing fires, feasting, communion with close ones, and evening physical exertion by dancing and singing, are examples of cultural winter therapies that have evolved as traditions since the beginnings of civilization.”Whether your celebration is therapeutic or not, remember that the worst is over. I’m going to light a candle and get some negative ions now.

Woot! I have a day off tomorrow from BOTH jobs, so it feels like my Friday!

1. After realizing one coworker was going to be out the rest of the week, I decided against a marathon knitting session last night for the other coworker. Instead, I did a marathon knitting session on a different gift. How marathon, you ask? Well, we started and finished the miniseries from the new version of Battlestar Galactica. Mr. Isbell is hooked.

2. As you might be able to tell from the late posts this week, it’s been hard to get up in the mornings. It seems even darker than usual. I’m glad the solstice is coming.

3. Speaking of dark and winter, I think this will be appropriate today:

I think I was still waiting to fight more Crazy 88’s yesterday morning, because I didn’t even mention any projects. I can only mention, not show, because they’re gifts for Christmas–Christmas, which is less than a week away, and yes, I am still knitting them. I even added one to the schedule. I had plans change and tonight became free, and in my current frantic ninja-fighting mindset, that’s more than enough time to knit something to give to a coworker tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Of course I can do it. Bring it on!

Remember “The Gift of the Magi,” about a penniless married couple having mishaps with presents? Here’s my version of it: I was following Mr. Isbell home last night after an evening at his parents’ house when his tire blew out. So we both pulled over and put on the hazards, and Mr. Isbell got the donut spare and the jack out of the trunk—no problem, really. Except my Christmas present was in the trunk, too. I pretended not to notice but he said, “There’s your KitchenAid” and it was a happy Christmas moment at the side of the road.

Once we got on our way again and convoyed to my apartment, Mr. Isbell helped me unload the car. I was putting away laundry when I remembered I had one of his presents in the bags he was unloading, so I dashed out of the bedroom saying “Don’t look in the Harmons bag!” but he was already putting things back in the bag, pretending he hadn’t seen his present. So I said “There’s your Carhartts” and it was a happy Christmas moment in the kitchen.

(We’ve both decided this is turning into the “Christmas of No Surprises, but yes, I am giving Mr. Isbell more than pants.)